


Spin Cycle

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:43:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1818961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A single shirt left behind in a machine and now Caboose can’t stop thinking about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spin Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> Another request from Synnesai.
> 
> "Laundromat AU where Church and Caboose are strangers but when Caboose goes to use the dryer Church just moved his clothes out of and leaves, he left one of his shirts there that Caboose ends up with. Realizing it’s not his but that nice grumpy looking man’s shirt, he keeps it to give back to him. He gets the chance the 3rd time he’s there and sees church and well the rest is up to you."

Everything about the shirt is wrong. The shade of blue is too light. The size is two too small. It’s made out of synthetic fibers, which he would never, ever wear. It still has it’s tag. With a sigh Caboose glances around the laundromat, looks up and down the aisles, and he knows he isn’t going to find the person it properly belongs to, but he has to try. And, sure enough, he couldn’t find the man he had seen earlier who had worn pale blue with his black hair and who had the most vibrant green eyes he had ever seen before. If he wracked his brain he could remember the man emptying the dryer Caboose had used into a laundry bag and carrying it out over his shoulder an hour ago, not even bothering to stay behind to fold his clothes.

With a sigh Caboose just carefully folded the shirt and tried to decide just what he was going to do. He could just leave it here with a note, but then it would probably get stolen. He could give it to the lady behind the counter who ran the dry cleaner part of the place, but that seemed a bit problematic as well. In the end he sighed and just put the shirt on top of one of his piles as he loaded up his laundry baskets. He’d just have to hope to run into the man to return it to him.

* * * * * *

It lives on the passenger seat of his car. Caboose sees it every morning when he comes out to the car and every evening when he heads back into his apartment. A point of pale blue fabric in his car that makes him think of a grumpy looking man with dark hair and vivid green eyes framed by black glasses that didn’t suit his face and who radiated ‘stay the fuck away from me’ vibes.

By the end of the second week seeing that shade of blue almost makes him smile, which really doesn’t make any sense. But it does, and Caboose takes the shirt into the apartment with him one evening, telling himself that it’s getting too sunny and leaving the shirt out in the car is going to get it all sun bleached. It ends up living on the shelf by the door, and the flash of blue whenever he comes home makes him… happy.

He can’t explain it, and doesn’t try.

* * * * * *

When he gets the clothes together for laundry day he puts the shirt back in his front seat. Smiles down at it. Freezes when he gets to the laundromat and as he parks he notices a man in a pale blue t-shirt and with vivid green eyes framed by black classes that don’t suit his face, and dark hair that Caboose wants to run his fingers through for all that he doesn’t know where the thought came from. Starts to get out of his car and wave except the man has loaded up his laundry by throwing it in the back seat of his own car and has climbed into the front and Caboose can only stand and stare as the man drives away.

He leaves the shirt on the front seat as he does his laundry, and tries to figure out just why he thought of his fingers in that hair. Or why thinking of that makes him want to cup his hands around the stranger’s chin, feel the rough beginnings of a beard scrape against his skin, and for the life of him Caboose can’t figure it out.

* * * * * *

Third week with the t-shirt and when Caboose comes in, laundry basket on his hip, he finds the man there, sitting on a terrible plastic chair, sipping at a cup of the not so good coffee from the vending machine, and reading something called the _Annual Review of Neuroscience._ His expression is pinched with annoyance and Caboose opts to start by loading his laundry into the washers because when he looks around none of the timers on any of the machines of either type seem to suggest that the stranger will leave soon.

Loads in and timers running Caboose runs back out to the car, reverently picks up the pale blue shirt that smells like sunshine at this point, and nervously makes his way over to the man. Stands there for half a minute while the stranger stares down at his magazine, his expression becoming darker and darker by the second.

“What the _hell_ do you want?” the man finally demands, looking up from his magazine and glaring at Caboose with those vivid green eyes, and even with all the annoyance radiating off of him Caboose loves to look at that face.

“You left this,” Caboose announces as he thrusts the shirt at the man.

Silence, staring, blinking, and then the man’s looking up at him again. “What the fuck…”

“You left it in the machine a few weeks ago. I used it after you did, and I…”

The magazine slowly, carefully lowers, and Caboose ignores the article with lots of really long and complicated words and just smiles as a hand comes up and snatches the shirt away.

“Thanks.” The word is grudging, and Caboose sits down beside the man anyway.

“You’ve done your good deed, now go away,” the other man hisses.

“I tried to give it to you last time I was here, but you left so fast,” Caboose continues, ignoring the irritation the other man is giving off because he can still remember the way his mind likes to give him images of running his fingers through his hair, letting that rough stubble scrape against his skin, the more recent thoughts of lips pressed against his.

Was it possible to fall in love with someone you had never really met?

“Oh, I’m Michael, by the way. Michael Caboose.”

“Leonard Church,” the man answers, all attention back on his magazine.

“I guess you probably live near here because you use this laundromat. I live near here too.”

“You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?” Church sighs and Caboose smiles at him, beams to the best of his ability. Watches as fingers come up to rub at the bridge of his nose, just below the glasses. Then the hand pulls away and Church looks at his watch and sighs, long and hard put upon.

“My stuff needs put in the dryer in fifteen minutes. After that I’m getting a sandwich next door. You have until I go next door,” the man growls and Caboose smiles.

Fifteen minutes was a very good start.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Drying Out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4043794) by [Churbooseanon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon)




End file.
